


Stand Aside

by Hannah



Series: Dog Days Are Over [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:49:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My own take on what life might be like Down Under.</p><p><i>It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going. - Anthony Burgess</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand Aside

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Amp and Kara for cheerleading, Aki for consultation, and TeratoMarty and Toxo for beta-reading.

He could see, from the way she approached and how she held herself, that she knew what she was doing and what she was after. There was no hesitation in her walk, nothing fearful in her stance. She came to and stood by the campsite, the sunset ringing out behind them both, early evening breezes rustling the grasses and making the fire dance, carrying the smell of roasting rabbits along with it.

He’d stopped late that afternoon when he’d seen someone from afar and set up his camp shortly after; he knew they’d see him if he did. As they came closer, he found out the person was a tanned, rangy woman, with a face drawn tight from years of hard work that was rimmed with red-brown hair, with eyes held still. He stood to greet her properly.

“Good evening,” she said.

He tipped his hat to her.

“You plannin’ on entertaining?”

“I was hopin’ to,” he said.

When the rabbits were cooked, she gutted her own animal and took the heart from his when he offered. After they’d finished cleaning the bones and burying the remains, she lit a pipe and puffed quietly, leaning back and watching the stars come out.

“So where’re you comin’ from?” he asked her while he cleaned his rifle.

“Up north, near Mount Elizabeth,” she said. “Headin’ back home to Perth. You?”

“Down south. Out near Adelaide.”

She nodded, puffing away. Her smoke smelled like vanilla and made him wish for a cigarette, but they’d have been one more thing to carry and he’d already made his choice for his portable vices. When she was finished, she took care to knock the ashes into the fire, and stashed the pipe away carefully – her pack was larger than his own, though not by much, and when she didn’t pull out her own swag, he said nothing.

“I’d like you tonight,” she said, moving to sit right beside him, looking him straight in the eye as she spoke. She laid her hand up on his thigh.

“I’d like that too,” he said, allowing himself a small smile, and she gave him one in return.

She took him gently, both of them moving together quick and quiet underneath the stars. They both knew the chances for finding another person in the never-never, and to not waste an opportunity when one came. When it was over, they slept pressed together, and in the morning, after shaving off the night’s stubble he served a breakfast of iodine-flavored coffee alongside fresh-cooked bush banana.

“So where’re you off to next?” she asked when they were done.

“Farther west. I’m out trackin’ someone down, and he’s got a bit of a head start, but I’m closing in. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

She laced up her boots while he pulled his on. “An’ how much longer would you say?”

“Two weeks, maybe three.”

She watched him hoist his pack and his rifle while she put her hair up out of the way. They stood still a moment, and she looked out at the horizon, then back to him. “Care for some company on the way?”

“Aces.”

They walked through the day, following the trail his quarry left for them, stopping for food and water when they came across it, changing course when they found something new to follow. He didn’t stop the same time as he had the day before, waiting much later find a suitable spot to break camp. She had a fire going when he came back with a pair of rabbits, and she skinned her own with a practiced efficiency.

“I could get us somethin’ tomorrow night,” she said when their dinner was cooking.

“What’s it you use?”

“Short bow.” It was something that would’ve been fancy twenty years ago, a marvel of tiny gears and fine wires that folded up and collapsed into something hardly taller than the arrows it used and strong enough to take down a charging buffalo without a fuss.

“Very nice.”

“It was my mum’s. She said I oughta have somethin’ t’keep me fed when I went out bush.”

“Kind of her.”

After their supper, they leaned against each other back-to-back, warm bodies in the cool desert night. She lit her pipe and puffed it to life, and began blowing smoke rings towards the stars.

“How long’s he been out runnin’?” A breeze came up, teased the fire and broke the last ring into so much nothingness.

“Oh, three months, nearly.”

“Been following him this whole time?” She passed her pipe to him, and it tasted like it smelled, round and sharp. He held the heat in his mouth before blowing it out slow to keep the taste a little longer.

“Just this last one.”

“Quite the head start he’s got, then.”

“Quite, love.”

“An’ you ain’t worried?”

He handed it back. “He’s comin’ from Adelaide, too. Right from the city.”

“Well, then,” she laughed. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

She took him again that night, and the next; on the following, when she started her girl’s week, she tucked a cup up next to her copper-T and pulled out her own swag while he kept his tied up. They continued following after his quarry, the signs left behind growing more obvious, more blatant, the desperation in the man writing them clear.

“So why’d he leave the smoke?” she asked on a piss break, after she’d emptied her cup and stuck it back and wiped her hands on some stiff grass.

“Tryin’ to outrun the law,” he answered, shaking himself off and zipping up his trousers. “An’ he did, so they called on me t’find him.”

“An’ why’d he want that?”

“Beat his wife t’death.”

“God.”

“With a golf trophy.”

She looked out towards the Southern horizon, staring at the distance. When she finally spoke, she spat out, “Bloody cartoons.”

“I hear that, love.”

Her week lasted four days. When it was over, they found themselves a lake, full from winter rain, and stripped off their clothes, diving under the surface with nothing between them and the water that ran smooth and cold over their skin. It was still water, and safe, and clean; they’d tested it to know for sure. They could drink this water as long as they liked. They left behind clouds and trails of dust as they swam, her hair loose and streaming as she pushed on ahead of him. They laughed when they came up for air, with the birds calling back, and dove back down again to go as deep as they could get.

They swam back to the bank and left their clothes off, found a fallen tree to sit on and let the air dry their skin in the early afternoon heat.

“So what’s it you do when you’re not trackin’ blokes through the outback?”

He took a moment to answer. “When I’m lookin’ for work, I’m happy with whatever might come ’cross my way.” He tilted his head back to watch the sunlight play over the leaves. “It ain’t always mad killers. Sometimes it’s just – oh, buffalo culls, or patrolin’ wheat fields for a summer. Might even pick up something in a city if I have to.”

“An’ if you’re not lookin’ for work?”

“Then I’m happy just livin’ out here.”

“So what’s the worst job you’ve taken?” She leaned her head back, bracing her arms against the trunk, letting her hair fall down to hit her hands.

“What’s it ya mean by that, exactly?”

“The one you most wished you hadn’t taken.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Trackin’ some drongo’s camel.” She laughed, and he smiled. “This prizewinner, some real stud, it breaks out one night an’ I happen t’be there t’take the job, and it’s a month trackin’ the bloody beast, two gettin’ it back to the farm, an’ I don’t give a toss what anyone says ’bout the toads an’ rabbits, camels are the worst bloody thing anybody ever let off a boat.”

“God, yes.” She laughed again. “I always ask for more if someone wants me t’deal with camels.”

“So what’s it you do when you’re not taggin’ along with someone?”

“I’m a vet.” She moved to sit cross-legged on top of the tree. “Livestock, mostly sheep an’ horses. I’d just finished up a job for a friend from uni, an’ figured, I had some vacation time, so I called the office an’ said I’d be out a couple of months, then took the long way home.”

“An’ the oldies don’t mind?”

“Nah, they know.” They watched some parrots fly to the other side of the lake. “It’s the family’s business. We’ve got our practice out in Narembeen.”

“Ah, she’ll be right.”

They were dry by then, and took a few more minutes to stay still before getting up and dressed and moving on. She took him again that night, and they stayed silent as they moved on down the days, through the heat, across the sand to the canyons and caves where he was hiding. This close, it was clear that someone from the smoke was hiding – broken gadgets tossed aside, tattered clothing right next to them, smoldering fires, pieces of animals tossed aside to rot in the bushes without the decency to eat or bury them.

His quarry was cowering in the shadows, shivering in the heat, withdrawal symptoms already set in and running fast, his one-lush moustache fallen ragged, muscles fading – half-crazed, half-sane. They circled around while he spun about, trying to keep them both in his sight.

“Why – no, don’t even bother tellin’ me, I don’t even want t’hear why,” she said, walking slowly, never getting close enough for him to touch. She held her bow slack with an arrow notched, and the man held his rifle with a bullet in the chamber at the ready.

“I swear, I swear it from the bottom of my soul I didn’t mean a thing, I swear I didn’t mean a thing.” Neither of them stopped moving around him, neither moved their faces or gave a thing away. “I meant no harm to her, I swear, it was just an argument, I swear.” He turned on his heel to face the woman again. “There’s no need for any of this, any of that, I’m civilized, I am,” he begged. “I can learn, oh, leave me be and I can live out here, just like you and you! Don’t bring me back and leave me be and I’ll learn to love the land, I’ll learn to care for it, oh how does the poem go, I love a sunburned country, its land full of wind-swept –”

The man slammed the butt of his rifle on the back of his quarry’s skull with a solid crack, knocking him out and to the ground with a fine cloud of dust that took a moment to settle. A trickle of blood started to make its way down his neck.

“It’s sun-burnt, you shithouse bastard,” he snarled.

“That ain’t even the start of it.” She nudged the body with her foot.

He didn’t take his eyes off his quarry lying in the dirt. “The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes, of ordered woods and gardens, is running in your veins. Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft dim skies, I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.”

She nodded, smiled for a bare moment. “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, her beauty and her terror – the wide brown land for me.”

“The stark white ring-barked forests, all tragic to the moon…”

They kept trading verses while he unwound the coils of rope looped around his shoulder and she got his quarry’s wrists and ankles behind his back while they trussed him up. When they ran out of poem, she asked with a smile, “You had t’memorize it too?”

“State testing, mandatory requirements, gotta know the classics by heart.” He didn’t smile, but there was jest in his voice.

“An’ they don’t bother with it themselves, now where’s the sense in that?”

“Ah, you know cartoons – they’re the ones livin’ in the cities, they think they’re the dinkum Aussies.”

“Always thinkin’ they don’t have t’prove a thing to anyone.” She shook her head. “An’ look where it gets ’em.”

“Ain’t their fault.”

“No.” She sighed. “No, I suppose it ain’t.” Looking back up to the sky, “Doesn’t mean I can’t feel a little sorry for ’em time an’ again. I know it’s wasted. Still can’t help it.”

“More ’n what they’d give t’us.”

“An’ ain’t that th’way of the world.”

“Always, love.” They’d stashed their packs near the edge of the canyon, and she stood guard while he went back to them. He dug around in his until he found the little drawstring bag all the way down at the bottom, and pulled it out and open to get to his mobile.

“Right, then,” he said when he got back. “I called the jacks an’ they’ll be here in a few hours, more or less, so we’ve got to keep an eye on ’im ’till then.”

“Got nowhere else t’be right now,” she said while they carried their quarry to open ground and settled in to wait.

He leaned back to take in the sky. “They’ll be takin’ him t’Adelaide.”

“So I’ll catch the Indian-Pacific.”

It was well into night, long enough he was almost ready to give them another call, when they saw the hovercraft approaching. It moved straight on through the sky without a sound, like a crocodile swimming through water and going just as fast, and they had to shield their eyes from its lights when it got in close. It was all curves and glass, close to four times the length of a typical ute, and it held its position right above them for almost a minute before moving a little ways away and landing as gentle and quiet as anyone could want.

A door opened with a faint pneumatic hiss. Both the man and woman stood and braced themselves. Three policemen walked out, dressed to the nines in shirts and all, moustaches rippling under their noses. One of them stepped forward to the edge of the light, tipping his hat. “An’ what a pleasure it is t’say hello. Miss.” He didn’t wait for a response, just made his way over to the bound man, struggling more now that what had been coming for him finally arrived, and made a few disapproving sounds. “Thought ya could run, didn’t ya?” He kicked the quarry in the stomach, forcing him to cry out and curl up as best he could. The other two laughed. “There’s no running. Justice will be done under Her Majesty’s rule, an’ oh, I can promise that. Count yourself lucky it was us what caught ya, an’ not any blackfellas what wouldn’t take kindly, make no mistakes.”

The man and woman said nothing, and kept their naked faces still.

The officer turned to them and smiled. “You’ve done your country a fine service, capturing this fugitive.” He moved to kick the quarry again, and when he flinched and whimpered, the officer laughed and put his foot down instead. “We’ll have him settled in soon, right and proper.” The man and woman watched while the wallopers went inside for a stretcher and loaded up the quarry into the hovercraft and the vehicle’s door stayed open. He tilted his head down to look at her from the corner of his eyes, and she crossed her arms over her chest to answer. The officer stuck his head out the door. “You lot care f’r a lift?”

The man shrugged.

“If you’re offerin’,” she answered.

It was a new vehicle, the floor barely scuffled, the fabric on the benches still a perfect cream, and it flew up and away without a sound. The cockpit, seating, and brig divided it into three neat sections. There was more than enough room inside for everyone to sit alone, and far more than enough light; it was impossible to make out any of the landscape even sitting right next to one of the windows, nothing but endless dark. The woman sighed and turned away from it to look to the man, who shook his head back and forth very slightly. They were sitting opposite the two wallopers – one was twirling his moustache and the other had his hands laced behind his head, and both were grinning.

“Can’t bring myself t’say I blame either o’you,” the moustache-twirler finally said. “Seems t’me it stands t’reason there ain’t much t’pick from when you’re out there, an’ you know what they say ’bout begging. Still, can’t say you did too badly.” The man knew they were speaking to him, and said nothing. He’d stopped for the woman because he’d seen a person, not because he’d seen a woman; she’d been his first person seen in nearly two months. He’d gone seven once. “Must be nice, havin’ somethin’ t’do out in all that nothin’, seems t’me it stands t’reason there ain’t much out there t’do alone.” He laughed, slapped his partner on the stomach, who began laughing as well.

The two wallopers kept jeering and joking until they were finally finished with the man and woman giving them nothing, and trailed off into silence and sleep. She looked at the man, who looked back with a question on his face, and she nodded gently to answer him that she’d heard worse. He thinned his lips, not liking it; she leaned back against the window, having long accepted that was what the cartoons said out in the smoke.

They touched down in the city just past dawn – all three wallopers had slept through the sunrise – and the man pulled out his mobile to monitor the transaction as the payment transferred over to his account. Satisfied, he and the woman walked out of the station into the city. They stopped for breakfast at a nearby café and sat at the window, eating silently and watching the ocean of bodies ebb and flow. When they finished, she insisted on paying, and once outside, they stood for a moment.

“You’ll be headin’ off, then,” he said.

“Yeah, figured it’s time t’head back. Train shouldn’t take more’n three, four days.”

“She’ll be right.”

“Y’know.” She laughed. “You know, I never got your name.”

“No, y’didn’t.”

She laughed again. “Well, best of luck t’you, Adelaide.”

He smiled, tipped his hat to her. “Take care, Perth.”

-

Even though he had the means for it, inviting the rest of the world to intrude while he was out in the bush – any invitation, in any manner – simply wasn’t on, not if he wanted to do a job or live there proper. So when he was alone again, after checking into a hotel and stashing his gear, he made his way to the nearest lending library and spent the afternoon with the last three and a half months’ newspapers. When he’d arrived at the proper desk and asked how he’d go about it, before the librarian could open her mouth, he made sure to say, “An’ digital’s fine.”

“Oh.” She nodded and pointed to a room on the second floor. “Then you just sign in over there, mark th’kiosk, an’ sign out when you’re done.”

“Thank you.” He picked the one next to the corner window, took off his hat and queued up the dates, and settled in to catch up on what he’d missed. That the USSR had won the contract to gengineer the rabbit control virus when last he’d read the USA had been the frontrunner in that bidding war made him raise an eyebrow. He kept scrolling through the headlines, going back to read the articles if something caught his eye, like PM Harold Holt being jeered and cheered through his American and European tours for Oz staying out of America’s fight, or Queen Vivian standing behind King Ridjimiraril’s decrees against mining tribal lands no matter how much the companies insisted there was to dig out of Kakadu. Saxton Hale was still one of the ten richest men in America, and the Opera House was still under construction, but those was less news than the first artificial hearts getting approved for human testing, and he took a few minutes to watch the featured video on their make and design.

After he’d got through reading everything, it was still early enough for the surrounding park to be more than full, all the people trying to raise as much commotion as they could – gigantic families from grandparents to third cousins picnicking in the shade, people running after their bounding wallabies with leashes flapping like ribbons, children chasing each other and climbing the trees and splashing through the fountains while their parents laughed and scolded from across the ways, gangs of hooligans roughhousing in the name of footie clubs, fights for no particular reason at all – all of them standing between him and his hotel room. He stayed quiet, avoiding the lot of them, dodging if he had to and giving as much space as he could otherwise. Even if he’d been alone in the park, he would have walked just as carefully and kept off the lawns just the same. Their grass was too clean to be real and too soft underneath his boots.

He stopped to read a sign next to one of the fountains that proudly described all the water recycling systems that kept the whole enterprise going, rainfall feeding the fake river feeding the fountains feeding the lawns. It was just the right time of day for the sunlight to hit the fountain and set it all alight, and at the right angle, he could see a faint golden shimmer in the flowing water.

A gang of children, near-teens with moustaches just coming in, ran right through it with a war cry to do Ned Kelly proud; he jumped away when they tore through, the water splashing down close. None of it touched him, and he shuddered at the thought and kept on going.

He stopped at a restaurant a few blocks from his hotel for dinner, one much smaller and quieter, and without taking off his hat, slouched down deep into his chair as soon as he got one to sit in.

“So can I offer you a drink, then?” The waiter asked, moustache ruffling, clearly trying not to show his offense.

“I’ll see th’menu first,” he answered.

He still had his hat on when the waiter returned a few minutes later. “An’ have you made a decision yet?”

“I’ll take a glass of the ’59 Shiraz.” He handed the menu back, not bothering to look up and see the man’s face. When the wine arrived, he drank it slow to savor the burn, ignoring the water glass and its slowly melting ice, and when his meal arrived, he had to admit that the cook knew how to grill a brumby.

The curtains in his room weren’t enough to keep out all of the light, just lessen it somewhat and get it close to late evening out in the desert. He pulled them back to look out over what he could see of the city – still bussing about, still full of itself and humming along with no reason to stop. Just because the day had ended didn’t mean anyone was going to sleep just yet. The moon was rising nice and steady, and the city was so bright it didn’t have any company up in the sky, save the occasional hovercraft.

He felt a shadow of what’d gone through him the first time he’d come to the city – the first time he’d been off the station and away from home, the first time he’d gone to see a doctor in a hospital and not from an airplane, the first time he’d seen so many people. Compulsory, mandatory, standardized state testing to make sure School of the Air students were up to snuff with the kids in the smoke, done up regular, and it was finally time for him to get paraded around and shown off. Everyone’s parents knew someone whose friend hired a jackaroo whose kid got taken because he’d fallen behind in teaching. They always warned their sons and daughters about it before wiping their faces and pushing them through the doors to recite poetry and solve sums and whatever else to make sure their parents wouldn’t have their children taken away to be raised by the state to be the sort of fair dinkum Australians they were supposed to be, that their parents weren’t.

He’d spent the week trying not to drown in the ocean of bodies and wondering how everyone else managed, trying to figure out where they kept the dirt. The best part of that week – the only good part – had been finally meeting his classmates and teacher face-to-face, not just talking to them through a computer screen. One teacher and seventeen children aged eight to nineteen to a classroom nearly the size of Finland.

When he’d finished with his tests, his parents took him out to the museums, the parks, all through the great, shining city, telling him that if he kept up in his studies he’d move here someday and join the rest of the country. That he’d make something of himself and wouldn’t stay out in the bush raising sheep. And some of his classmates had done just that.

He pulled the blinds closed harder than he needed to. He brushed his teeth without any water, just like out in the bush, not even bothering with the shower, before stripping down and rolling up in the covers, pressing his face against a pillow to get as much dark as he could before trying to fall asleep. The next morning, after he shaved his chin and face clean, he took a trip to the post office where he had his mail sent. Sometimes there was nothing, sometimes a card or package from his parents, maybe a public notice sent out to all citizens informing them of the monarch’s new proclamations. He never expected anything, which made its contents this time around that much more surprising. There was a letter from America, from someone and somewhere he’d never heard of in his life, that he saved to read until he was back in private.

His usual business after a job was to head back and spend two or three full days in Adelaide, just long enough learn what he’d missed while he was gone and look for work if there was any to be had, before heading back to the bush, either to try and find a job out there or to live alone for a while. Wash the city from his bones. This time, he had reason enough to stick around for five. The job offer from overseas didn’t give much in the way of specifics except that they were looking for someone in his profession, said offer was only good for so long, and it was in his interest to respond as soon as he could. When he did, making sure it was daytime across the dateline when he called, the most surprising thing about the whole affair was hearing someone from the home office would arrive in town to see him in person the day after tomorrow.

“You can get your hands on a visa that fast?” He didn’t like how his voice jumped, but he’d never heard of anyone, not even by special request from the King or Queen, getting in with less than three weeks’ advance notice.

“We have good connections,” Miss Collins replied. From her tone, he believed her.

True to RED’s word, Miss Pauling arrived right on time, carrying a briefcase and smiling politely. “It’s good to speak with you in person, mister Mundy,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Likewise,” he said. He’d finally bathed the night before, programming the shower for a pair of three-minute bursts with two minutes in between to soap up to keep exposure to a minimum. He’d kept his mouth and eyes closed tight during the whole affair, and dried off as fast as he could.

“Oh, thank you,” she said after they were seated, when the waitress poured them each a glass of water. He pushed his away; she picked hers up to look at more closely, and the light that fell through the water landed golden on the table.

“Y’had any t’drink yet?”

“Some, when I got off the plane.” Miss Pauling put her glass back down, crossed her wrists over each other on the table and kept looking at the water. “I bought a bottle of whatever the local brand is from the Adelaide reservoirs. Galah Water, with the red cockatoo on the label. But nothing since then.”

“Y’should be all right. Takes a good while for it t’build up.”

“It’s a clever system for distribution,” she said. “Using Australium to line the pipes in the water supply network to make sure everyone gets a constant level of exposure. It’s remarkably efficient.”

They drank it in the smoke, cooked with it, cleaned with it, swam in it, bathed in it, brushed their teeth with it – every time someone in a big enough city turned on the tap that stuff was there for them. The people unlucky enough to mine it took it in through their lungs, right through their fingers. People that moved overseas bought tiny tubes of hand creams laced with the stuff that cost the moon. The whole mess made his skin crawl to think about, and her knowing about it made him wonder where she’d learned. That sort of information wasn’t the kind anyone shared with foreigners.

Miss Pauling smiled when he asked. “RED’s had business in Australia for a good long while and it’s had time to learn a fair amount. That specific item was part of the briefing I got before I left.”

“Right, then.” The whole situation, from them knowing about the plumbing to her getting a visa so fast, was more than a little suspicious, and he was more than a little intrigued. He took care to give nothing away when he went on, “An’ this briefin’, did it tell you how t’order coffee while you’re here?”

“Among other things.”

They placed their orders – decaf short black for him, a pair of flat whites for her, with his late lunch and her early dinner to come later – and as soon as the waitress was off, she opened up the briefcase and got down to business. Like a professional.

Sniper said yes to the offer ten minutes later.

-

As fast as they could get someone from the inside proper documentation, Sniper still had to go through the official channels for a passport and American work visa, which meant three weeks of waiting for the bureaucrats. In the meantime, he called ahead, checked out of the hotel, started walking, and arrived home four days later. He could’ve made it in a few hours if he’d driven, or two days if he’d hitchhiked, but he needed the time alone. When he finally arrived at the Mundy Station, it was midmorning and his parents were out with the sheep and this season’s jackaroos. His mother protested, saying he didn’t have to pitch in; he did anyway. It put off any conversations they’d have for a few more hours.

When it did come, it was after they’d all showered the day’s work off and his father led the three of them in grace. He’d been bracing himself for what would be coming for the last four days, and it was still all he could do to wait for the meal to end.

“How long will you be staying?” His mother asked, passing him the water.

“Week or two.” He poured himself a glassful and took a long drink – out here, there wasn’t anything special to it, with nothing in it to worry about.

“Splendid,” she smiled. “I’ve just started a new shawl pattern, I’ll show you tomorrow.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“So how’s the life of a swagman treatin’ you?” His father asked.

“It’s treatin’ me fine.”

“An’ what was it you were doin’ before you came home?”

“Finishin’ up a contract in Adelaide.” His father made a sound somewhere in the neighborhood of a laugh.

“Lemme guess, this contract included gunnin’ people down?”

‘Try to take him alive if you can’ was the exact wording. “We’ve been over this, Dad. It’s a profession that –”

“What good’s a profession if it’s not fit for discussing with polite company, is my question,” his father said. “You remember that girl up the way, Norah Jutland?”

“I remember Norah.” His closest classmate had been two years younger and lived nearly a hundred-twenty kilometers away, with their families getting together for big holidays the way good neighbors did.

“She’s still on the market, you know,” he went on. “Went on and earned her law degree, got her own practice now. She’s settled down out in Bathurst, an’ she’d love it if y’paid her a visit.”

“I might,” he said.

“Her parents say she needs help ’round her place, if you need an excuse.”

“Mum…”

“You were always so friendly with her.” She sighed, looking at and through him. “It would’ve been so nice t’give you someone t’play with.”

“I know, Mum.”

“Not for lacking of trying, though.”

“Dad!”

“We’re all grown-ups here,” he chuckled a moment, then pulled himself back to his regular demeanor. “Really, though, you oughta find somethin’ where you’re not just tryin’ t’stumble over what might come next. Even bein’ a drover you’d have something more regular.”

“I get paid well enough.” Better than them. He’d worked it out once by both job-for-job and year-for-year.

“It ain’t the pay that’s the question.” His father sighed. “You could still always go back to school. Your marks, I never understood…”

“It wasn’t for me, Dad.” They’d had this conversation often enough they knew what was going to come next, and not to say it out loud.

They had roasted peaches in syrup for dessert, followed by tea on the porch while they watched the sunset pass and birds fly home for the night. The jackaroos were in their dormitory out near the sheep, and it went dark before the sky did. Sniper stayed outside after his oldies went back in, waiting until he knew he’d have the house to himself. He nearly always came back home two, three times a year since he’d first gone bush, and it was never any different. Pushing open the door and walking inside was never any different, no matter what was new since the last time he’d been around. The old banged-up coffeepot his father would never replace was still there, next to the same stove it sat on every morning, but the flowerboxes on the windowsill had been swapped out for some little stone figures that’d been caught in the middle of a dance. On the bottom of one’s feet, it said she’d come from across the sea all the way from China; he put the little dancer back, then turned her to face out the window so she’d get to watch the sun come up.

There were more photos on the wall, most of them distant family from where his grandparents said was ‘back home’ – never mind they’d never set foot on English soil after they’d left it behind, never mind they’d raised their children here, never mind he’d never once left the continent.

His parents had finally replaced the old engine block of a computer with something new and sleek from Melbourne that was nearly a miniature cousin of the wallopers’ hovercraft: white instead of gray, smooth curves instead of hard lines, not a speck of age anywhere on it. He’d asked a few times for one of his own and they’d never given in, no sense in being greedy, he’d learn his lessons fine out in the living room, he didn’t need one in his own bedroom. Would’ve been nice to talk to some of his classmates in private, though – have a little more time with them before they went off to the cities.

He’d hit the books with a vengeance when he turned fifteen, managed to place and test out of his last year’s education, finished up his exams near the top of what was possible. When he was done with it all, the next morning he told his mother he was going bush and walked out the back door without looking back. Never had.

Sniper went back to walking through the house, running his hands over the walls and winding his way ’round the rooms until he got to his. Pushed the door open, flicked the light on, sat on the bed and took it in – he always believed his mother when she promised him all she did was dust it once a month. Same as it ever was. Sleeping in a bed wasn’t such a novelty coming so soon after the hotel; sleeping in his old room, that was the trick.

Getting up before everyone to feed the chooks, get the eggs, even put the coffee on, was as much a way to be helpful as it was to steal a bit of the dawn all for himself. The quiet didn’t last long, but it never did, and he knew better than to expect it to. The next two weeks were full of noise, with only a few moments of quiet scattered throughout. They’d already done the shearing and lambing in August, so September meant vaccinations, docking, mulesing, neutering, pasture rotation and seeding, making sure everything was up to proper standards and then some. There wasn’t much time left over for doing nothing, but he and his mother managed to set some aside for the promised knitting out on the back porch like they’d done when he was a kid and wanted to learn what she was doing. He started on a tea towel while she went at the shawl, telling her what he could about the newest contract he’d picked up – his father, too, when he joined them after his day’s work was done.

When the weeks were over, Sniper kissed his parents good-bye and started the walk to Adelaide. Didn’t look back. By the time he arrived, all the necessary paperwork was finished, approved by everyone that mattered. He spent nearly an hour looking over all the documents, lingering over the visa and passport. Nobody he’d spoken to ever wanted to leave the continent, and those that did, when they came back, always fell over themselves saying how much they’d missed it and how glad they were to be back. Cartoons, all of them; practically nobody from the bush had reason to leave.

The day after getting back into Adelaide, he bought a ticket, checked his rifle, boarded an airplane for the first time in his life, and set off for America.

-

When the plane touched down, Miss DeSena was standing tall at the gate, ready and waiting. After they’d got his passport stamped, collected what luggage he’d brought and exchanged some money, she whisked him off to San Francisco proper.

“How was your flight?” She asked when they turned onto the highway.

“Long enough. Decent food,” Sniper said, staring out the window at the bay from the wrong side of the road.

“Are you going to need some time to adjust to the day’s shift?”

“Nah.” He’d managed some sleep on the plane and could stay up for another fourteen without a fuss. Most of those were spent in offices – a few more things to sign at RED’s local bureau, finishing up the paperwork for his visa at the local consulate, registering a box at the post office. By the time the day’s business was through, it was dark enough to see night had about arrived, and when he asked Miss DeSena if she knew any decent places to stay in the city, she pointed him to one of the grander structures down near the bottom of Market Street. Once he got into his room, there wasn’t time to do anything besides unpack his rifle, close the curtains, and fall into bed. The next day’s agenda was nothing but a visit to a doctor’s office that involved a regular exam, some more questions, and a few machines that reminded him of the hospitals back home. And when that was over and done with, after he gave them the contact info they asked for, they said they’d get right to him when they needed his services. And that was that.

He’d have to manage his own transportation while he was here, and get on that before his new bosses called him up for his first job. There’d be time for that yet, enough to give him a couple of days in the city to ease into how things were done in America.

“So you’d like…?”

“Just a – what’s a café con leche?”

“Coffee with milk.”

“And an Americano?”

“Coffee with water.”

“I’ll take a decaf one o’ those.”

“Large or small?”

“Large works.”

“You got it.” She rang it up with a tinny ding from the cash register, and he handed over the hard paper currency that was all the same color. “Hey, if it’s okay – can I ask where you’re from? I mean, your accent…”

Sniper pocketed his change. “Wales,” he answered.

“Must be pretty there.”

“It’s no San Francisco,” Sniper said, and she laughed, her teeth a bright flash against her dark skin. There was a seat at a window, and he settled in to sip his Americano and watch the sea of people move in the slow autumn sun. They didn’t look a thing like the people in the cities back home – there were more colors to them, for one, not just white and white and white with the rare black face, but everyone walking together. And they were walking along like proper civilized people who didn’t get into fights for no good reason. Like someone took everyone from the bush and put them in a city, and left them as they were.

It might well be the entire bush packed into the city. There were probably enough bodies out there to match everyone out beyond the black stump person for person.

Sniper spent the afternoon walking along the water and ate supper a little walk away from the hotel by the triangle building in a tiny Italian place that had the absolute best bloody pasta he’d ever eaten in his life. There’d been almost nothing on the menu he’d recognized and he’d settled for ordering the special of the day, and after his first bite, decided to stick with that strategy. The wine was round and sharp and went down smooth, the way it ought to, all the way down to the bottom of the bottle. When he got back to his room, loose and warm, he opened up the blinds and looked out over the city, then turned his head slowly to look out to the bay. It was a decently-sized city by any measure, but it felt so small compared to the ones back home, and he hadn’t yet seen a telephone that didn’t look like it’d been brought in from an antique store, even at RED’s office.

As novel as it was, it was a city, and even though he knew he’d be aching to get out to someplace with a horizon soon enough there was still plenty it had that the cities back home didn’t, enough to keep him here a while longer.

He’d never been anywhere back home that had a bathtub in its bathroom. They were something he’d read about in the books he’d gotten from his grandparents, like a white Chrissie. Back when he’d taken baths, his mum or dad had filled a metal washtub and scrubbed him down. Even the most expensive hotels wouldn’t go for something so wasteful and indulgent. But here, there wasn’t any need for anyone to worry about droughts or rationing, not even him if he didn’t want. And it’d been a very good bottle of wine.

It took a decent while to fill the tub. He watched the whole time, staring at all the water – all the good, safe water, with nothing in it to make it any more special than any other water – coming out of the faucet just for him, taking in all the sounds it made and how it filled the room, letting it run over his hand while he curled his fingers in the stream. He reached over and turned the tap off and stayed sitting on the dunny, staring at what he’d just drawn out of the system for his own pleasure, enough water for a dozen decent showers. When he finally stripped out of his clothes and stepped in, he stayed on his feet a moment before sitting down. He shivered in the warm water before closing his eyes, tilting his head back, and barking out a laugh that ended as a sigh.

He was still drunk enough to have to pay attention to what was around him, and at the right sort of near-sober to be able to focus when he did. The water wouldn’t move unless he went first, so he stayed still, just moving one thing at a time to feel it tease and caress his skin. He sat up, ran his hands over his face and through his hair, brought up handfuls of water to let run down his back, nothing like anything back home. A lake or river wasn’t this tame, wasn’t something he could play with – in, not with, this was nearly a toy made out of water. A bath was for playing, not for getting clean.

After he finally dragged himself out and toweled off, he took another look out the window around at the city before moving to the bed, and didn’t bother to put anything on or get under the covers.

The next night, he didn’t bother going back to the hotel at all, and instead went looking for something that the cities back home didn’t have, never had, but the bush did. And just like the bush, he waited until he saw someone, and did his best to get their attention without being too obvious about it. Except here in America, he’d waited in a bar, not by a fire, and bought the bloke a real drink before they did anything together.

“What’d you say your name was?” The man gasped as Sniper broke the kiss, looking up into his eyes.

“Didn’t,” Sniper whispered, unbuckling the man’s belt and going to his knees.

“Right,” he gulped in some air and shivered when Sniper opened his fly to the cool night air. “And where are you from again?”

“London,” he said, and licked his lips. The first time seeing a flushed naked cock was always a thrill – not knowing what sounds might come, learning the taste, the exact weight, finding out just how much to use his teeth. He licked way up the man’s cock, slowly, dragging his tongue behind his lips before wrapping them around the head and pressing his tongue into the slit, swallowing down the little drops of bitterness. The man groaned deep, pushed his hands underneath Sniper’s hat to grab his hair, and Sniper hummed happily.

He started moving down, keeping his lips over his teeth at first, down and up and down and up, tracing up the veins and across the ridges and folds with his tongue as he went. The man kept making deep, low noises, just right, just right to repeat back to him and make that cock twitch just perfect. The man started fucking his mouth with short little jerks Sniper could feel with his hands wrapped around the man’s hips, and he closed his eyes a moment to savor the give-and-take of a good blowjob. He shifted on his knees a bit – going at it in an alleyway wasn’t nearly as comfortable as kneeling on dirt – and swallowed as much as he could before sliding his teeth up, pressing only enough to let the man feel them, see if he wanted more or less of it. More, from the sounds, from his gathering words enough to ask, and Sniper was happy to give. Move down as far as he could, and then a little more, swallowing around that fine cock, scraping his teeth against it, hitting every little point he could find and back up to the head to lick and suck and press his tongue back into that lovely slit.

He was close and Sniper gave him more, kneaded his ass through his trousers before moving a hand to roll his balls in his fingers, leaned in and moaned from the very bottom of his lungs, happy – and yes, he cried out so nicely, a single sharp cry as the one warning. Sniper swallowed every drop, keeping that slowly softening cock in his mouth as long as he knew the man could stand it to be there.

He was shaking, leaning against the wall, wide-eyed and panting. Also happy to kiss him even with his come still in Sniper’s mouth.

“I gotta get to London sometime,” he murmured into Sniper’s mouth before snaking a hand into his trousers to return the favor. “Lemme help you out with that.” And god help him, the man knew exactly how to hold another man’s business and work him to a frenzy. Knew just the right way to stroke, to pull, to tease and work him over and done in no time flat. His breath was warm against Sniper’s ear when he brought his hand up to his mouth and licked away every drop. He leaned up to kiss Sniper when he was done showing off.

The next part, that was just like being back home in the never-never. He’d come across someone, and he’d spend some time with them. And when they were done, then they’d both go off and be alone again.

He pushed his hat back and took a look up at the night sky. San Francisco wasn’t near as bright as Adelaide, and when he moved away from the lamps and shielded his eyes, he could pick out a handful of stars so easy.

Before he checked out of the hotel, he went to pick up some books, mostly novels that hadn’t gotten state approval yet and a few on America – no history books, just some guides on what he might come across and maps of the roads. After he checked out of the hotel, he rode a little train across the bay, keeping his rifle safe and out of sight, and went to buy a camper. Nothing fancy, nothing too grand, just something to let him move and sleep where and when he wanted. The third one he looked over was two years old, brought in for a reason he didn’t pay attention to while the salesman kept on yubbing his mouth. It’d be generous to call it cozy, and there wasn’t a shower to speak of, but it’d do fine.

“Yeah, I’ll take this one,” he said, cutting the dealer off mid-sentence. The man took a moment to look at him all cross, then nodded and asked for the price. Sniper pulled out the wad of bills, peeled off the right number – he hadn’t expected the Australian dollar to be so strong against the American, everything was so much cheaper here – and offered them over, only to get another strange look for his troubles.

“There’s still some paperwork we gotta do.”

“Ah, right.”

“And – hey, where’d you say you were from?”

He hadn’t. “Yorkshire.”

“Right. Anyway, let’s get on that.”

The forms and papers took them less time than getting his box at the post office, and most of that he’d spent waiting in line. When they were all signed and dated, he stuck them in the glove compartment, and his first stop after filling up the tank was a secondhand shop for proper blankets and furnishings, then another shop to get the right hooks and screws to hang his rifle up properly. He ate rabbit for supper again that night, out in the hills near the mountains, underneath low, stubby trees ruffling in the cool air. He was far enough from any city or town the entire sky lay out for him, and all he could do under the strange stars was watch them turn. It was so hard for them to fight city lights, and out here they didn’t have to. He’d need to get a guide to let him know what he was looking at, they were all wrong and backwards this far North.

The way the world tilted meant he’d left early spring behind to head right into the middle of autumn, and that he’d been cheated out of a summer, and bugger, he’d have to buy a decent coat. He’d lost a season along with a day – he’d slept through the flight over and hadn’t noticed it go, and a full season didn’t seem like the kind of thing that he should be able to lose just like that.

Well. He’d get it back when he went back home.

-

His teammates seemed like a decent enough bunch – maybe some of them a bit off, like Pyro always in his suit and Soldier sometimes somewhere else entirely inside his head, but altogether the lot of them weren’t any better or worse than any other set of blokes he’d find. And as novel as it was to have a decent chat with Engineer and know that’d he’d be around come next week, it didn’t take much for his skin to start itching for some more space and a bit of night air. Which didn’t stay his own for long.

“Ah, bonjour.”

Sniper tipped his hat to Spy, who pulled a cigarette from his case and his lighter from his jacket. He moved to light it, then stopped to pull out another cigarette and offer it to Sniper.

“Thanks, mate.” He leaned in for Spy to light it, and the nicotine rush didn’t waste time racing through him from his ears to his toes and back, shaking the world looser and more refined.

“If I may – I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten. Where exactly do you come from?”

Sniper glanced at Spy, then back at the upside-down stars to blow out a fine cloud of smoke. “Australia.”


End file.
